With the interest attaching to great enterprises hardly anything is too small or insignificant to be counted. How the Founder first got his idea to do something for women, what the highest opportunities were for women nearly fifty years ago, are on record and need no further chronicler. All the various steps in development of the great enterprise, the discouragements of building in the face of civil war, the lack of enthusiasm in public opinion,--all this is familiar history. The sketch by Benson J. Lossing entitled "Vassar College and its Founder" tells the story of the beginning, describing the equipment--rich for that period,--giving a picture of that proud and happy first Founder's Day, when with a line of students each side his carriage, with flags and songs and banners Mr. Vassar was escorted up from the lodge, and, in the enthusiasm of his triumphal procession and welcome, perhaps first realized what he had done for women--what he had instituted for all time. Let us hope in the general gladness and gratitude he had the richest sense of reward, a consciousness that he had done wisely and well, felt, in short, that in the fullest Yankee sense "it had paid." When a full history of the college comes to be written--as it will be--of this great epoch in educational history, we shall realize still more what it was to have faith to establish the first properly equipped college for women, and the wonder of Dr. Raymond's work in its organization. No one can read the history as given in his "Life and Letters" without increased appreciation of what it was to evolve out of chaos the educational life and policy of the college with the social as well. In this latter part he was incomparably assisted by Miss Lyman--a power, too, in her day and time. It is interesting to trace the record of growth and development from the beginning, and to notice the change from sceptical opinion or amused tolerance to belief and acceptance. The Founder began collecting press notices, and the treasured annals of the library collection owe their start to him. [Illustration: 1865] In the main, the notices were dignified and commendatory:--"A munificent enterprise. With the progress of our civilization, the sphere of personal activity enlarges for women as well as for men, and education must keep pace with its progress.... The institution is intended to be all that the term college imparts; to be ultimately what Yale, Harvard, and Brown are to young men."